In the creative industries, crowdfunding is a relatively new way to fund ideas and projects which combines online payments, fundraising, sales and an engaged audience or crowd.

Put simply, crowdfunding is the process of asking a crowd of people to pledge a defined amount of money for a specific project in exchange for various rewards.

Most of the higher profile crowdfunding websites offer reward-based crowdfunding. This means the creator of a project asks a crowd to pledge money to their project in exchange for tangible rewards such as a ticket to an event, a t-shirt, a pre-released CD or a finished product.

There are also equity-based crowdfunding websites where people can ask a crowd to invest in their business or idea in exchange for equity. An Irish example is Seedups where tech start-ups are matched with investors and their seed capital.